River Color ...

“Life is a train of moods like a string of beads; and as we pass through them they prove to be many colored lenses, which paint the world their own hue, and each shows us only what lies in its own focus.”

               ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

                      ~ 1803-1882

Autumn colors reflect and dance in the Lehigh River on a beautiful October afternoon at Lehigh Gap.

I captured this shot near the Lehigh Gap Bridge, which spans the river in the shadow of the Kittatinny Ridge, also called Blue Mountain.

The Lehigh Gap in Slatington, Pennsylvania, is a crossroads where the Lehigh Gap Nature Center’s trails connect two historic trails – the Appalachian Trail and the Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor (D&L Trail).

The Appalachian Trail, a foot path, follows the ridge on both sides of the Lehigh Gap, running 1,245 miles south to Georgia and 930 miles north to Maine. Running from Wilkes-Barre to Bristol, the D&L Trail passes through the Lehigh and Delaware rivers and their canals in Pennsylvania.

The Lehigh Gap Bridge was built in 1930 and rehabilitated in 1984.

Horseback Through The Covered Bridge ...

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

                             ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

                                       ~1803-1882

What a wonderful way to spend a summer evening, riding on horseback through historic Bogert’s Covered Bridge in Lehigh Parkway, Allentown, Pennsylvania, as the late day sun dappled light seems to trail them out of the bridge in early July.

Bogert’s Covered Bridge spans 145 feet over the Little Lehigh Creek.

Built in 1841, its history traces back to the mid-1700s when the Bogert family moved into a log cabin next to the future site of the bridge. It is the oldest covered bridge in Lehigh County and among the oldest in the country. It is open only to pedestrian and bicycle traffic, as well as the occasional rider on horseback.

Bogert’s Covered Bridge is a wooden Burr Truss bridge with vertical plank siding and a gable roof. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.